


a year and a day

by softlyblue



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff, Happy birthday!!, Love Confessions, M/M, this is silly basically spock and kirk have a year to confess or aliens will Make Them Confess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27516880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyblue/pseuds/softlyblue
Summary: They have a year and a day to right some wrongs and tell some truths, or the full force of (yet another) alien justice system will crash down on their heads.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Spock, Spock & Nyota Uhura
Comments: 18
Kudos: 87





	a year and a day

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday to my beautiful wonderful girlfriend cerys!!!! i love you i hope this makes you happy <333

_ a year and a day - day one _

“Let Spock go,” Jim says, teeth clenched, so angry he’s seeing red. “He’s my friend, he’s done nothing wrong-”

The aliens are tall, wearing thick green robes and velvet shoes, but other than that they are humanoid. At his outburst, the one holding him squeezes his wrist so tightly he feels the bones rub against one another - Jim’s academy training kicks in on automatic, and he’s been through this so many times that the iron grip around his wrists doesn’t even faze him; he looks them up and down and draws his conclusions, while they give the landing party the usual death-or-consequences speech. Spock is the only figure that worries him. 

“You were not invited onto our lands,” says the leader, hands clasped in front of them, “And your landing here disrespects our customs.”

Beside Jim, Bones is cursing under his breath, in colourful country slang - Jim catches, and knows, about one word out of every ten. Sulu is standing stiff and still at the end of the pack, as though he’s on parade attention and not shackled in front of an alien court; Uhura looks worried, but no more than she does when she thinks she’s about to lose during three-dimensional chess. 

On Jim's other side, Spock is standing, still as the grave. His eyes are flickering in the same way Jim’s are, up and down the robes, all around the room, making his snap judgements and drawing his logical conclusions. He looks calm. Every human crewmember has been given one pair of handcuffs, attached to a thicker chain connecting them all, but Spock has been assigned two green-robed men, cuffed with one hand to each of them by chains thick and chafing, as though they knew already how strong Vulcans could be, and had prepared for this. Jim can see a ring of dark green blood around the wrists, there.

“We are peaceful agents of the Federation,” Jim delivers his line, as he’s been prompted a million times in the academy. “We come seeking only peace. If we had known this was against your custom so severely, we would never have landed.”

“And yet you did,” the leader says. They are tall and almost grey in colour, their eyes the same washed-out grey as the rest of their skin, and completely bald. Under their two biological eyes are daubs of facepaint, brilliant emerald green irises painted on the apples of their cheeks, and dangling around their neck is a single piece of jewellery; a heavy golden pendant, on which a blue eye set with sapphires spins ponderously. There are five other aliens in the room all similarly dressed to the leader, and all with the daubed makeup and the pendant, although they vary in colour and stone setting considerably. 

Jim looks at Spock. Above the nose, between the beautiful eyes, he can see the cogs wheeling. 

He needs only to wait. “Let me signal my ship. There are many of us, in a space vessel above the atmosphere-”

“We are aware of the Starship Enterprise. NCC-1701,” says one standing behind the leader, a little shorter, their cheek-eyes red and their pendant-eye set with topaz. “Captain James Tiberius Kirk. First Officer Spock. Communications Officer Nyota Uhura. Medical Officer Doctor Leonard McCoy. Lieutenant Hikaru Kato Sulu. We are aware of you all.”

Again Jim looks at Spock, but this time Spock looks back, and if Jim didn’t know him as well as he does he would think Spock’s expression had not changed; it has, however, minutely, a line between his furrowed brows and a downturn to his lips. 

“The Federation has not made contact with this planet,” Jim tries, and flexes his wrists again against the handcuffs. They don’t give an inch. “We did not know you were a telepathic race.”

“We are not telepathic,” the leader says. The eye on their jewellery winks. “My name is Justice Yoru, Captain, and when you are on our land you will abide by our laws.” 

“We have not broken any of your laws beyond landing,” Spock says. Jim finds himself exhaling, his shoulders falling just a little from their defensive rise; he is sure of himself, of course he is sure of himself, but when Spock joins him on his side of the argument, he feels even surer that he is in the right. 

Justice Yoru makes an irritated sound inside their cheek. “We are not telepathic. It is a crime on our land to lie, Captain, and we must treat any and all on the soil as though they are our citizens, and abide by our laws.”

Now Jim can feel his eye twitch. “We haven’t lied!”

“Jim,” Bones says, “Don’t  _ aggravate  _ the fellow.” 

Jim ignores him. Sulu and Uhura, to their credit, still haven’t made a sound. “We have broken no laws. Let us return to our ship, and we will contact you no more.” 

“That is within your right,” says Justice Yoru, their face turning ever the more solemn, “But if we allow you this, you must allow us something in turn - to be free from our judgement and our laws, if, within the bounds of a year and a day, you right the wrong you have committed.”

“The… wrong,” Jim repeats, feeling distinctly as though he’s being tricked, “And if I right that-”

_ “All of you,”  _ Yoru enunciates. 

“If  _ we  _ right that,” Jim says, although he dislikes speaking for his crew, “We have no duty to this planet? What are your alternatives?”

“We are not a telepathic race, but we are advanced enough that we will find you, within range of this galaxy. If these wrongs are not righted within a year and a day-” Yoru looks to one side, and then nods at one of their green-robed companions- “We will locate you, and force the truth from you. We are not a violent people, but we cannot bear the continual lies of a race such as yours. The choice is simple, Captain. Right your wrong now, or within our given time period.”

“Let me talk to my crew,” Jim says, and tries to sound the statesman, the diplomat. Spock is always better at that, far better than him, but it falls to Jim all the same. He tries not to look at the Vulcan beside him. “Give us-”

“Ten of your minutes,” Yoru says, and turns on their heel; their robes flash behind them in an uncharacteristically flamboyant motion. “We will return to you then, and make our judgement.”

All the green-robed people leave the room, even the ones restraining Spock, although no move is made to take the shackles from their wrists. Once the doors slide shut, Jim lets his face move as it wants to again; he can feel Bones beside him, like a volcano, just bubbling up to explode. “Why, the very nerve-!”

“Captain, are you alright?” Spock says quietly, as Bones winds himself up and down again, in a voice so low only Jim can hear. “By my estimate, we have been on the surface for only an hour, if even that, but it may be damaging to your hands to have them tense for so long.”

Jim hadn’t even noticed how tightly wound his fists were, how flexed he’d been keeping his wrists, and when he relaxes them he feels a knot in his shoulders vanish. “Thank you, Spock. I… yes, I don’t think we’ve been here long. Damn the Federation. Their spotty notes are what’s got us into this mess.”

“And no doubt your diplomatic skills will be what get us out,” Spock returns with a quirk of his eyebrow. He rubs his own wrists. “Evidently these people have been forewarned of Vulcan strength - I have not met that sort of reception in some time.” 

Jim looks at the red fingerprints on Spock’s skin, just visible where his blue uniform slides up to his elbow. It takes a lot to mark Spock’s skin, but the bruises show up even more striking on the pale green. “Evidently. Well, that’s one thing the Enterprise can help with; we can update the Federation logs for this place. Stay away.”

“Captain,” Sulu calls, “What do we do?”

“What  _ wrongs  _ have we done, beyond landing on this place?” Bones is in a foul mood, and it shows on his face. “I hate the ones where I have to think. Come on, Jim, let’s just beam back up the ship-”

“They’re an advanced race. They would find us and bring us back down,” Jim says, “And you know, I think this is our only grace chance, since we’re so obviously unaware as to what’s going on here. No, Bones, I think we have to think this one out.”

“They cannot bear lies,” Uhura says. She’s the one that looks the most out of place with the heavy, elaborate shackles, but she’s also the one that looks the least uncomfortable. Adaptability, that’s Uhura’s talent, and a calm head in times like this. 

“None of us are  _ liars,”  _ Sulu says, deeply offended. “We are Federation officers-”

Spock frowns. “It is illogical to say you have never told a lie. Even I lie, on occasion.”

“How very  _ human  _ of you,” Bones fires back, and Jim can feel the argument brewing - equally, he can feel the migraine forming. He hates when he falls between the two of them. 

“This is pointless,” Jim says, still watching Spock’s hands, “We have a year and a day to think about this. Let’s tell Yoru we accept the conditions.”

Bones starts spluttering; Sulu and Uhura relax, their orders given, and Spock just quirks his head to the side, his eyebrows raised, his mouth ever-so-slightly turned upward, the closest he gets to an approving smile. Jim smiles back. So long as Spock thinks this is the right thing to do - then it must be. It must be.

_ the first month  _

After a few days pass and no aliens warp onto the Enterprise claiming lifelong prisoners of them, Spock lets the tension and the watchfulness he’s been keeping leak out of his attitude somewhat. He stops spending his off-shifts on the warp logs and down in Engineering, and goes back to the game of chess he and Jim had been slowly playing in the past few weeks - and back to the book of poetry he had slowly been burning his way through, as a challenge to the Doctor, who said it was all  _ sappy stuff Spock wouldn’t have a hope of understanding.  _

Most of it he doesn’t. He doesn’t get the bit about rough winds and the darling buds of May, and what that might have to do with anything, but he’s powering through out of a sheer determination to wipe the smile from McCoy’s face. 

Chess is infinitely preferable. He and Jim are rarely scheduled on off-shifts together, but that is fine; Spock set up a chess set in the officers’ rec room, and every chance he gets he will look in to reply to Jim’s latest move, knowing that Jim does the same to him. On days when either of their roles prevent them from working in near quarters, and Spock goes almost a full day cycle without seeing anything of Jim at all, he values the chess game even more - it reminds him with every fresh move of Jim’s unpredictability, his recklessness, his brilliance. 

But today, Spock walks into the rec room to find Jim at ease in the chair beside the black rows, his chin propped in his hand, a glass of cool water by his elbow. He looks up at the gentle hiss of the doors, and when he sees Spock his face brightens. “Oh - Spock! You caught me in the act.”

“Captain,” Spock replies. Jim smiles at him, his eyes vanishing in the crinkles of their lids, and it’s all Spock can do to stop his ears from visibly greening. “I assumed you would be on the bridge,” he says in recovery. 

“Oh, no. Saturday. It’s my day off and it’s yours, too, so I was thinking we could crack this match once and for all,” Jim says and pats the seat beside him with the tip of his boot. “And while we’re at it - made any headway on that Yoru’s riddle?”

“About the lies we supposedly told to be imprisoned?” Spock says, taking his place on the seat, one side of his body markedly more warm from Jim’s proximity. “I have thought about it at length, but I confess I am no clearer to what we should do than I was when I began. We have eleven months and one day to consider it further.” 

“An impossible riddle will always be impossible,” Jim lifts a knight and parries it against one of Spock’s pawns, a little white piece he had secretly hoped would become queen - it dies in one knock of the varnished wood against it. 

“It is a word game,” Spock lifts his piece and sets it in the white graveyard. He is losing this match, loath as he is to admit it, although he has a strategy which might still win him. “I am not good with word games.”

“You just need to think more human,” Jim smiles at him and again Spock feels the strange contraction within him, the squeezing beat of his heart too fast that has happened now for some months, every time Jim looks his way. “I have faith in you, Spock. I mean, what could we have done on the damn planet to sin so bad, anyway?” 

“Very little. As I recall, we had a brief conversation immediately after warping, and then we were captured by the Justice,” Spock slides his bishop up a level, and clenches his teeth against a satisfied smile at the shock on Jim’s face. “Captain, even I learn from the stupidity of humans.”

Jim laughs, his hand pressed to his thigh, the connecting slap loud in the rec room with only them present. “I will admit I didn’t see it coming. Well done, Spock, well done.”

The conversation after warp has played in Spock’s mind, as he tests it for lies. Uhura, Sulu, and McCoy had been silent, each checking their respective scanning devices, and Jim had made the broad statement: “Spock, my friend, I hope you won’t regret signing up to the landing party for this one.”

“Captain, you are my commanding officer. I have no feelings one way or the other on the matter,” Spock had replied, his hand on his tricorder. 

Jim had turned to him, brows knotting. “Do you hear th-” 

And then the authorities had arrived, with their manacles and their weapons and their formidable strength, which even Spock had found it impossible to struggle against. 

But nowhere in that exchange was there a lie. 

Was there?

“Ah, Spock, I have you cornered,” Jim looks at him with a victorious crow in his eyes, relaxed around Spock in a way he never is around anybody else. 

“You do, Captain,” Spock says, and moves again. 

_ the second month _

Very often, their landings are met with hostility and violence, regardless of the peace with which they come, and regardless of the white flags their ship signals down. Jim wrenches his arm out of the grasp of the next in a long series of diminutive pink aliens, third, fourth, and fifth eyes decorating their wrinkled foreheads, beautifully dyed cloth swathes draped artistically over their bodies. “I demand Spock,” he says, aware he must cut a ridiculous figure with his mouth still freely bleeding and his forehead black and bruised, “He is my first officer - he is my friend - I demand him back, before you do anything more to me.” 

He will admit, the blow to his head has done him a lot more harm than he thought. His memories of the past day are dim. He remembers Spock reading the Federation’s planetary summary, a  _ peaceful place without much space contact, but with awareness of the cosmos beyond the borders.  _ He remembers their landing, and then a phaser being fired, and some talk of civil war - but which side he is meant to be on, he can’t remember, and which side currently holds him captive, he doesn’t know. 

But he knows that this is where Spock is. He always manages to know where Spock is. 

There is fighting. Jim is not brought to Spock, which he could have told them would have led to fighting - he can hear phaser fire in the city outside, continuous and bright, and the sound of someone shouting about an escaped prisoner. The architecture on this planet tends toward minimalism, greys and pale washed out colours, but the doors are automatic and almost silent, and when Jim darts towards one and tucks himself into an alcove, he is unseen.

"Captain," the voice comes from inside the room, "So you are safe after all, it would seem."

Jim looks up, and finds Spock hidden in this corner along with him, and in much the same state as Jim is. A cut above his eyebrow bleeds sluggish green, and his face is pallid and damp with sweat, a droplet of which has escaped his jaw to go running down his chin and under his collar. "I was beginning to think I would have to come and find you," he says, and quirks his mouth in a way that means he's smiling; Jim is so wildly confused that he really has to fight down a bout of hysterical laughter.

"I was looking for  _ you,  _ Mr. Spock," he says instead of the cackles that want to escape him. He leans against the wall, and closes his eyes against the throbbing headache. Lately, his mind has been full of the threats they fended off from Justice Yoru, and the time they were given to right their crimes - maybe this is punishment, instead. "Are you quite alright?"

"I am fine, Captain. Vulcan disposition tends to the hardy, and it was only a glancing blow." Spock's hand grabs Jim's arm by the bicep, and Jim blinks awake; he hadn't even noticed how near Spock was coming. "Have you been harmed?"

For some reason, that makes Jim want to laugh all the more. He really has to purse his lips against it - he feels slightly manic, slightly mad, in a way he knows is rooted in something bigger than just the knock to the head. "Oh, not too terribly, Spock. Have you your communicator?"

"Confiscated."

"Mine as well," Jim nods and it sets his head spinning terribly. Only Spock, now gripping him by both shoulders, stops him sliding against the wall to be found by someone who will surely wish him harm. "So we're back to our old tricks then, Mr. Spock."

"So it would seem." Spock's eyebrows, beautifully pointed, have directed themselves into a furrow. "I would request that you let me lead us, however. I think your vision is impaired."

"Not a bit of it," Jim says, although the room is spinning around him, "But all the same, I think you'd better."

When Spock lets go of him it takes all of Jim's strength to stay upright. Spock is truly, tremendously strong, something he always forgets until there is call to use it; he can remember the few fights he's had with Spock, during that time with those awful flowers, during which the only thing he had on his side were insults and speed - Spock, with his brute force, would have crushed Jim in a second had he found the opportunity.

"Spock," Jim says, about to tell him that, before his senses grab hold of his tongue and hold it tight. "No, I'm sorry," he says - Spock, who is now out of the alcove and looking up and down the hall, looks curiously back at him - "I thought of something. No mind. Which direction should we take?"

They sneak through the corridors undetected, although Jim hears fleeting conversations behind closed doors and through thin walls about escaped prisoners and trickery from the opposite side.  _ Spacemen come to corrupt us all,  _ he thinks he hears at one point, and when he looks at Spock the pointy ears are twitching and he has to muffle laughter. So they have found themselves on the side of the civil war that hates the galaxy - more luck to them.

At intervals, Spock will hear something Jim cannot, and he will grasp Jim by the shoulder or the elbow and whisk them both hurriedly through the nearest set of sliding doors. Most of the rooms are abandoned, and they smell damp and dusty and are unlit, but Jim suspects that is just a side effect of the war. Occasionally someone is in them, but dressed in white uniforms or aprons, and of an undetermined gender; they will squeak, at these times, drop what they are doing, and run away.

Jim keeps waiting to hear the alarms, and finding himself almost disappointed when they do not come.

"I fear your concussion will need immediate attention from Doctor McCoy," Spock observes, after some time sneaking and creeping.

"You might be right," Jim murmurs. Darkness has begun to creep into the corners of his vision, and in the room they are in, a monitor room full of humming and buzzing, Spock has had to prop him up against one of the walls to stop him losing his balance. "I don't think I have long left in me, Spock. You think we're any closer out?"

"I have reason to believe so," Spock's face is very close to Jim's, and it takes him longer than he would like to work out that it is because Spock has tilted Jim's head by the jaw so he can inspect his eyes. "I have heard phaser fire down the other end of the building, and I believe that Scott will have been scanning the surface for trace of us, in any case. When we are free of the shields here, the  _ Enterprise  _ will find our biosignature and beam us up automatically. That is what is logical for him to do."

"Logical," Jim repeats. He wants to blink, but Spock is looking at him with such sincerity that he can't.

"Logical, Captain, which you are not." Spock lets go of him, and Jim's chin feels cold where his fingers have left him. "It is not logical to injure yourself in the search for a crewmate."

"You don't know that's how it happened," Jim says, and he knows it's the concussion, because he swears he sees Spock's cheeks flood with green.

It is not soon. it is another hour of painfully slow progress, but other than that, things occur just as Spock told him they would - they hobble out of the building, Jim hampering Spock's speed considerably, just as a group of the warring aliens figure out where they must be and careen down the building to find them, phasers blasting. Out in the atmosphere of the war-torn planet, though, Scott and the  _ Enterprise  _ do their jobs fantastically; the last thing Jim feels is the cold of the warp beam wrapping around his limbs, and Spock holding onto his elbow.

The last  _ last  _ thing he feels is Bones stabbing him very harshly in the shoulder with a hypo needle and telling him he's a fucking stupid moron who never should have been given leave to get out of Ohio, but that's by-the-by.

_ the fourth month _

Spock is a logical person, and has always prided himself on it. On Vulcan, before his ambitions to Starfleet had fully formed inside him, he had his logic and his pride when he had nothing else - nobody wanted to play with someone who was liable to cry when hurt, even though the tears were illogical, and nobody wanted to play with someone who still called their mother  _ mamma,  _ sometimes, when he was very tired.

Even when his mind was logical, his body refused to betray him. Spock would cry when he grazed his knee and T'Pring would pat him on the head - not unkindly, but with no warmth - and run to find Amanda.  _ Spock's doing something human again!  _ That's what she'd squeak in her childish voice, already detached and logical, while snot dribbled out Spock's nose and blood swelled under his skin.

"This is illogical, Captain," he says, irritated as he often is to find himself the only person on the landing party with any sense. "This is a supply drop authorised by Starfleet. This woman is not useful."

"She needs our  _ help,  _ Spock!" Jim looks at him the way he does sometimes, rueful and shocked, and at times like this his thoughts are written across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose; the disappointment in Spock, that he hasn't fulfilled some human priority or other.

Lately, it has been piercing Spock more than he is accustomed. "She can find help elsewhere in the spaceport," he says.

_ She  _ is a delicate human female named Lavender, which strikes Spock as a plain, uninteresting sort of name with no motivation behind it. Her skin is pink and her hair is blonde, of a lighter shade than Jim's which Spock feels makes her even less appealing; unlike Jim, her jaw is slender and undefined, and where Jim is broad of the shoulders and hips, she is narrow - no, Spock thinks, looking at her, there is nothing he can see which would tempt Jim to help her beyond anyone else who needs him in this bustling station.

At Spock's attention, she buries her face against Jim's shoulder, and says something inaudible. Jim's arm tenses around her waist, and tightens, and Spock cannot look away from the way his fingertips flex over the brief vision of skin between Lavender's waistband and the hem of her sheer top. "A supply drop, Captain, and our crew is fully-staffed. We cannot..."

The argument winds its well-worn path through both of their dialogue.

When Spock first met Jim, he would take great pleasure in these moments. He sought no approval from the Captain - approval meant indulgence in human priorities and emotions, and Spock fought hard against any hint of them. But now, for some reason he cannot place, it irritates him when Jim misunderstands him. Or, no, not irritates; Spock is displeased with himself when he can't gain Jim's approval.

"She's coming onto the ship with us, Spock," Jim says, and only the doctor's hand on Spock's elbow stops him from arguing further, "And anyway it isn't that far off our charted course."

"Spock," McCoy says, and pulls him towards the agreed warp point, "Back to the Enterprise. Come on."

They beam up, just the two of them. Jim and  _ Lavender  _ are following, Jim promises, they just have  _ some things to do. _

Spock leaves the transporter room in a mood that he will admit only to himself is black and sour. McCoy calls after him, but when Spock doesn't turn or reply, he can hear the doctor giving up and stalking down the corridor in the opposite direction, towards the medical bay. Spock is glad. McCoy, while not being  _ as  _ annoying as he had been a year or two ago, is still someone Spock cannot understand on a fundamental level; they are too opposed, too willing to tug Jim between them.

Spock's thoughts have been turning more and more to the dilemma presented to them by Justice Yoru. Fix a lie, or face the consequences - or  _ they  _ will fix the lie on their behalf. He can only assume someone else has done the lying, and are now too ashamed to admit to it, but he wishes whoever it was would hurry up. He dislikes existing beneath a sword of Damocles like this.

"The guest quarters are up here..."

A giggle.

Spock, who has been lying noiselessly on his bed, turns over to face the door. The guest quarters are  _ not  _ on this floor - this is the officers' quarters, as Jim knows full well. But of course, the Captain is the Captain, and he is not the only human on the Enterprise to sate his desires with companions at spaceports; merely the only human with the power to take them back to more comfortable - reclines.

And yet all the long night, he stares at the ceiling of his quarters, and imagines the noises. He can feel the hot green behind the skin in his cheeks.

But he can't stop thinking about it.

_ the sixth month  _

When Spock blushes, his face and the base of his throat turns green. Jim doesn't know how it's taken him this long to notice, but now he has, he can't seem to look away from it; he keeps saying things on the bridge he half-means, poking fun at Vulcan sensibilities, just to see his First Officer turn to his instruments with colour on his cheeks so alien to Jim.

He mentions this to Bones, on one of his recreational visits to Medical, both of them making headway down a bottle of thick brandy Jim had given to him on his most recent visit to a Starfleet base, as an embarrassed apology gift from the higher-ups about all that fuss over the trial. Funny, how he'd almost forgotten.

"Vulcan blood is green," Bones says, keeping his slurring voice remarkably under control, although his hand shakes when he sloshes more drink into his cup, "Surely you know that. The pointy fucker's bled plenty in our company. Remember-"

"I know he has," Jim cuts him off, unwilling to remember in any great detail the times Spock has bled around him. "But I was always too busy, if you recall, to notice the colour of his blood."

"Well, it's green."

"I know that. I'm not saying anything-"

"You keep saying a lot, Jim," Bones pours a measure in Jim's glass, too, and flaps his hands at him to drink up, "If I didn't know you better I'd think you were getting fond of him. Do you remember that boy from the Academy?"

"No," Jim says, and then laughs, "Which one?"

_ "Dog." _

They drink. Bones takes his measure as a shot; Jim sips his over a few minutes, but it still goes to his head just as strongly as it would have, and he can feel the room beginning to fade around the edges. He doesn't like to drink with very many people, never sure how deeply he can trust them, but Bones has seen him at his worst, his most unable; he would never dream of doubting him. Really the only other person Jim can imagine getting drunk with is -

Well.

Well.

"I wonder if they get drunk," Bones says, and at Jim's inquisitive look, smirks. "Vulcans. They're so high and mighty, I'd love to see it. Wouldn't you? Oh, but I'll bet anything drinking is illogical. I bet they don't have  _ anything.  _ I wonder what they do for fun? Stimulant drugs?"

"Stimulant," Jim repeats, and for a reason he can't place, it makes him squirm. "Uh-"

_ "Coffee,  _ idiot. Caffeine, adrenaline, brain-stimulators," Bones looks at him like he knows something Jim doesn't, "What on Earth did you think I was talking about?"

"I don't know," Jim says. "More brandy?"

Yesterday, Spock had brought up Justice Yoru's deal.  _ We have six months left to right our crimes, according to their laws,  _ he said, over a game of chess that still hasn't resolved itself,  _ I think I should begin to ask Nyota and Sulu about their ideas. What do you think, Captain? _

_ Nyota?  _ Jim had asked, so taken aback by the familiar that he hadn't even begin to think about the body of what Spock had suggested.

"You know, Bones," Jim says, several hours and a fresh bottle later, "You know, you know - you  _ know,  _ Spock calls Uhura by her first name, you know? Did I know that? He calls  _ me  _ Captain."

"Well, he doesn't want to date you, does he, does he?" Bones says, a rhetorical question that burns Jim's throat and behind his eyes. "Spock has Vulcan-hots for Uhura. She sings-" He belches - "She sings to him, in the rec room. You know that, everybody knows that."

"He doesn't call me Jim," Jim complains, "He calls you Doctor-"

"Well, he doesn't like either of us, idiot."

_ We have six months. Perhaps, Captain, we should begin to think about what we ought to do. We should give it some thought. Would you like to consider it in the next week, and tell me your conclusions? _

"He calls me Captain," Jim says morosely. "Give me the brandy."

"You're his captain. What's he meant to call you?" Bones pours them both a generous drink, "Why are we talking about Pointy, anyway? I already spend too much of my time getting annoyed by him, and I don't want to do it when I'm drunk, too."

Jim can't answer Bones, and that frustrates him. Recently, Spock's been frustrating him, every time he looks at Jim with measured, distant eyes and those handsome high cheeks, regal nose, and calls him  _ Captain. _

_ I'm not your Captain,  _ Jim wants to tell him.  _ I'm your... _

"I'm his friend," he slurs to Bones, aiming for the neck of the brandy bottle and missing, "I want to be his friend."

"You're about as much his friend as Vulcans ever have friends, I think," Bones rolls his eyes, clearly finished with this conversation about half an hour ago, "And anyway, why does it matter? He won't be bitching to his little Vulcan mates about you. Does he  _ have  _ mates?"

"He has me," Jim says in a voice he knows is stupidly injured. "I'm his mate."

Bones pours another drink for him. "Please. I spend so much fucking time around the man already, so  _ please  _ can we talk about something else.  _ Anything  _ else."

"We need to think about Justice Yoru-"

"We need to get fucked, Jim. Get fucked."

"Get fucked," Jim repeats, and then he thinks about Spock blushing again, and he wonders what is happening to him. 

_ the eighth month  _

Jim doesn’t come back to the ship that night. 

Spock is not upset, because he is a Vulcan and he knows better than to let base emotion control him, but an odd sensation claws up within him, not unalike the sensation he would experience when T'Pring - and they are children, in this memory - would pass him over for the other children in their Academy class to meditate with. So no, Spock is not upset when Jim does not come back to the ship that night, but he is frustrated. He had plans.

"The Captain and I were to discuss the dilemma presented to us by Justice Yoru," Spock says to Nyota. They are in his quarters, significantly larger than hers, and he is pouring them a drink; for himself, chilled water, and for her, a fruity concoction she has shown a preference for, on shore leave when they find their way to after-hours establishments together. "Now we cannot. He has gone off with Rushia."

"Rushia," Nyota repeats, taking her drink. She is sitting on Spock's bed, but he thinks nothing of that - Nyota is his friend, and would be his closest were it not for Jim. She has not given him permission to call her anything, but again, in his own head, he is allowed the intimacies nobody will see. In his mind, nothing can be harmful. "Rushia was the woman we rescued, wasn't it?"

"The young woman, yes." Spock sits at his desk.

"She was very beautiful," Nyota looks at him while she sips, just eyebrows raised over the rim of her glass, "Don't you think so?"

"I do not, no," Spock says forbiddingly.

"She isn't to your taste?"

"I do not have taste."

"Spock," Nyota sets her drink down on the shelf above his bed, and smiles at him. "You and the Captain have months to discuss the problem. It'll work itself out, anyway - they always seem to. I think you  _ know  _ what lies he told on the planet's surface, anyway."

"No," Spock says. He doesn't. He's telling the truth.

He is a Vulcan, and Vulcans have no time, no space, for foolish emotion. He has proved this to his own satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of his father, to the disappointment of his mother, to the constant ribbing of his doctor - he will not have Nyota disprove him, throw doubt on something he builds his certainty on. "I fear you have drawn conclusions where none are to be found."

"Oh, you fear that?" Nyota laughs. She has a pretty laugh, and a pretty toss to her head too, and at the beginning of their mission Spock would have looked twice at her; but now all he can think is that she is too small, too narrow, her voice too high. He does not want to investigate that, though. He hasn't the time.

"Fear is not-"

"Spock, you know very well what the lie was," Nyota leans forward, strikes a pose, puts on an accent.  _ "Mister Spock, you're my friend.  _ Hah! You think that sounds truthful?"

"I am his friend," Spock says mildly. His back is crawling. He does not know why, but he feels as though Nyota is digging too deep into something he himself has not thought about. "I am honoured to be his friend, and I would be... disappointed if that was not truthful."

"Oh,  _ Spock." _

"What?"

"You must know he's in love with you," Nyota says, and although he searches her face he can see no hint of deception, "You  _ must  _ know he loves you back."

“This is foolish talk, Nyota,” Spock says quietly, and he knows she is sitting still and silent because she doesn’t want to let him know the first name is a shock for her. “I do not want to think of it any longer. Jim’s affection is his own to give and have as he pleases, and it is no problem of mine no matter what he does.” 

“It is a little bit of your problem,” Nyota says. “Since you’re in love with him, and everything.”

“I am not.”

“Spock,” she leans forward and puts her small hand on his knee, a move that might have caused him to fluster had he not firmly categorised her as a friend, immovably, “Spock, I can’t think for you and I can’t talk for you, either, but from where I’m standing, he loves you. Do with that what you will, but  _ I  _ know and  _ you  _ know the lie Captain Kirk told to Justice Yoru.”

“I do not.”

“Let Spock go,” Nyota quotes, a soft smile on her face, “He is my friend.”

“I will-”

“Think about it,” she stands and moves to the doorway, standing in the middle of the open threshold, “Just think about it, and I bet you Kirk’s already come to the same conclusion I have. And when it all happens, Spock, you better buy me a damn good drink.”

She’s gone before he can fight any more with her. He exhales, and presses his hand to his eyes, and feels very, very tired. 

_ the ninth month  _

“Oh, my god,” Jim says, alone in the cave, his forehead bleeding and matting his hair, his arms aching, the sliced clawmarks across his belly really starting to hurt him, “I’m in love with Spock.”

“Now is  _ not  _ the fucking time,” Bones growls. “I swear-” And then he looks up, his face the very picture of shock, a bandage held loose in his hand,  _ “What  _ did you just say?”

“I’m in love with Spock,” Jim repeats, swaying. His head is light. 

“I  _ know  _ that,” Bones says after an eternity of a pause, “But I didn’t think you  _ didn’t.  _ What the fuck, Jim? Did you think you just liked getting drunk and talking about him for fun? Stay still, stay still, you mad bastard, stay still,” and he presses the end of the sticking bandage to a spot unmarked on Jim’s back.

“I love him. I’m in love with him,” Jim feels dizzy. He feels manic. He holds Bones by the shoulder. “He’s dead and I’m in love with him.”

“He’s not  _ fucking dead.”  _

Spock is dead. 

This had been a routine land and scout, as many of Jim’s missions appear on the surface, but it wasn’t long before it had gone sour and wrong and bloody, as many of Jim’s missions are in the body. Upon landing on the surface, Spock’s tricorder had begun beeping with frantic and high-pitched intensity; further exploration of the planet let them almost immediately to the entrance of a series of caves which Spock informed them burrowed throughout the planet’s crust; cheddar cheese, Bones had remarked, and for once Spock hadn’t told him to stop being illogical. 

“But Captain,” Spock had said, and his face had been turned in alarm, “The life form is coming closer-”

And then something had emerged from a side tunnel of one of the caves, maw gaping, claws thrashing, and picked Spock up whole in its jaws. It slashed Jim; it thrust Bones into the cavern wall.  _ Nobody  _ could have survived that. 

“I’m in love with Spock,” Jim repeats, sliding down the wall, looking at the spot where the creature took him, “Oh, Bones, why didn’t you  _ say  _ anything?”

“Jim, you stupid bastard,  _ Spock’s not dead.”  _

“Spock’s dead,” Jim says mournfully. “Oh, Bones.”

Of course, Spock is  _ not  _ dead. Jim loses his battle with consciousness due to a combination of blood-loss and a hypo to the shoulder courtesy of Bones, who spends the next twenty minutes with his communicator flipped open, talking Uhura through tracking Spock’s life-signature in the cave systems.  _ “He’s alive, sir,”  _ she reports, her voice staticy but clear,  _ “His heart is beating a little slower, but he’s alive.”  _

“I know,” Bones snaps, “I know - this fucker down here has just decided he loves the pointy bastard, and now he can’t live without him.” Jim, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, is soundly out of it - he doesn’t react at all. 

Bones hears Uhura switching to a more private frequency.  _ “Mr Spock has told as much to me, too, a few weeks ago,”  _ she says in a casual, conversational tone, so nobody on the bridge will think to eavesdrop.  _ “And, Doctor, if you ask me, that ultimatum we were given-” _

“Yes, yes, tell a truth, crime to lie,” Bones says irritably. “It’s obviously Jim’s fault. Everything’s Jim’s fault.”

_ “And Mr Spock.”  _

“Oh, I take it as a given that Spock is the reason for most of the galaxy’s problems,” Bones says. His instruments give him a solid read on Jim; his chest is knitting itself back together, under the healing bandage. “All the same, Uhura, I don’t mind telling you that I’m getting sick and tired of them dancing around the issue. Are we going to have to wait until the very last day for them to  _ do  _ something about it?”

_ the last day _

“Captain Kirk,” Justice Yoru is here, resplendent in their robes, a company of silent, judgemental aliens falling host behind him. “Mr Spock. Doctor McCoy, yes, Lieutenants Uhura and Sulu. Very well. You have failed to right the crimes for which you stand accused on our sacred soil. The time allotted to you as forgiveness given your status as aliens has passed. Do you wish to correct your crime before the court, or face the imprisonment time?”

Jim knows his crime very well.

Spock knows his crime very well. 

“The imprisonment time,” Spock says, knowing Jim will find no pleasure in his confession, wishing to spare him the embarrassment of it, “How long would this be? Would it fit the whole, or simply the criminal?” 

“All here present are aware of the crimes committed, and have aided in the continuation of falsehood by leaving truths unspoken,” Justice Yoru says severely. “Imprisonment time is life.”

Jim knows why Spock is asking. He is preserving Jim’s dignity, his  _ own  _ dignity, trying to stop Jim from ruining a friendship he has come to value, a working relationship Jim has come to trust in far too much to risk it with confession. He only wishes he knew Spock had known before this. His cheeks, he knows, will be turning scarlet, as much as he wishes they wouldn’t. 

But why, then, does Spock look so anguished - 

And it is anguish, Jim knows him well enough to see that now - 

So  _ anguished  _ at Yoru’s answer? 

Behind him, Bones makes a noise Jim might almost think was an amused huff, if the stakes were not so high. Well.  _ High.  _ Jim’s embarrassment and fall from grace, the loss of the best friendship he has had, or a lifetime of imprisonment for the command of Starfleet’s flagship. Really. Personal dignity, or Starfleet? 

Jim has already made that choice, long, long ago. But he thought that Spock was on the side of Starfleet, something he would  _ gain,  _ not someone standing on the other side looking in, someone to be left behind when Jim chooses his job - his ship - his people. 

Of course, Spock has been making this decision his whole life, ever since he turned away from the Science Academy and sent his form into Starfleet, knowing he was secure in a place no Vulcan had ever dared to go before. His mother used to talk to him about love.  _ Spock, my darling,  _ she would say and hold his cheek, and he would turn away, ashamed of the open affection, and she would say  _ I love you, my Spock.  _

In his heart of hearts, ever since the discussion Nyota forced him to have, he has wondered how that would feel coming from Jim’s face, his strong jaw, his cheeks coloured the way they do when he has exerted himself, his eyes turned downward - or would they be upward? - and his mouth framing the words.  _ Spock,  _ he would say.  _ I love you.  _

Justice Yoru seems to know a little of what goes through his mind. Spock has seen telepathic races, comes from a telepathic race himself, but never has he felt so invaded as now. “I would like privacy to correct my crime,” he says calmly, only his Vulcan meditation keeping his emotions from showing on his face, “If the court would permit me.”

_ Spock’s crime?  _

Jim looks to Bones, shock painted on his face, but he sees only happy amusement on all three of his crewmates - Bones, Uhura, and Sulu, all look as though they have knowledge Jim does not. 

_ What crime has Spock committed?  _

“Permitted,” Justice Yoru says, a faint smile on their face. “You may have a minute of Earth time. Already, time is against you. Think about your own crime, Captain.” With a wave of their hand and a hiss of a transporter beam, the three Enterprise crewmembers are removed from the room. In swishing velvet and superiority, the host of Justices leave the room, and Jim and Spock - 

And Spock and Jim - 

Are left alone together. 

“Captain,” Spock says, and he knows his emotion is etched upon his face. 

“Mr Spock,” Jim says, and he wishes he could see something of the thought behind the impenetrable Vulcan demeanor. 

For the first time since they have met, Spock finds he has nothing he  _ wants  _ to say to Jim, and Jim finds he has nothing he  _ can  _ say to Spock. 

“Before I tell the crime I have committed,” Spock begins, surprising both himself and Jim in his forwardness, “Before I - well, Captain, I would have you remember that I have at all times held the Enterprise and the safety of Starfleet above my own personal aspirations.”

“Spock-”

“No, Captain, I would have you let me finish,” Spock is more formal than Jim remembers him being, even in the infancy of their friendship, his attitude stiff, his cheeks greening, “I would tell you this, and then I will hand in my resignation and have Scott drop me at the nearest Starfleet Base.”

_ “Spock-”  _

“I find to my distraction that the lie I told was in my neglecting to mention any feeling for you that I might have held in my heart. I thought that by ignoring this, or indulging in my feelings without your knowledge, I might remain a professional friend-” 

“Spock, I-”

_ “But I cannot justify,”  _ Spock seems almost out of breath, and more flustered than Jim has ever seen him, “I cannot justify the imprisonment of my - of my friends, of my friends, over a lie I was not strong enough to ignore. I am sorry, Captain, but I love you.”

“Spock,” Jim says, a sort of disbelieving victory bubbling in his chest, an ache in his body he finds he finally has a release for, “Spock, I - I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> <333


End file.
